


La Serenissima

by DoctorBilly



Series: Tales from the Billyverse [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Billstrade, Billyverse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-10 00:12:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2003376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorBilly/pseuds/DoctorBilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade has arranged the perfect holiday for Billy.</p><p>Tags: Billstrade (or Wigstrade if you like); consensual sex; romance; gratuitous cookery; gratuitous tourist information </p><p>Set some time between <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2164599/chapters/4732854">No Stairway To Heaven</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2205123/chapters/4832097">The Other One</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	La Serenissima

Billy Wiggins wakes to a quality of light he is not used to. Dim, greenish. _Watery_ , he thinks. He is not used to the sound he hears, either. The long slow wail of a siren from not far away. He turns over, shifting towards the centre of the soft, warm bed, wrapping his arms and legs around his soft, warm companion.

"What is it? What are the sirens for?"

Gregor Lestrade smiles and hugs him tight.

"It's Acqua Alta."

"What's that?"

"High water. When the wind's right, it drives an extra high tide across the lagoon, and into the canals. The streets get flooded. Listen. There'll be shorter blasts of the siren. Count them, it will tell us how high the water will rise."

Billy counts. A four-second tone followed by an eight-second tone. Lestrade's forehead wrinkles as he recalls what he knows about the city's warning system.

"Four plus eight; 120 cm above normal. The passerelle will be going up. The walkways. You saw those things that look like bike racks everywhere? They're supports for wooden boards for people to walk on. To keep them out of the water."

"It gets that deep?"

"It can do, but today we'll be okay if we wear welly boots. Filippo's probably got some we can borrow."

Lestrade has planned the perfect holiday for Billy. A few days in Venice in February.

Billy loves the water; he lives on a houseboat on London's Regent's Canal; but the water here, and the quality of light on the water, are different. He doesn't like to expose his pale skin to hot sun, he burns easily. Venice in February is cold and gloomy, beautiful in the wintry light. And there is Carnival.

Lestrade is lucky in having a good friend who lives in Venice, in a palazzo near the piazza San Marco that has been in his family for generations. Fillippo Pedrolli is a Maggiore in the Carabinieri, the armed police force in Venice. They met years ago, when Lestrade was involved in an international case, and they have kept in touch, staying in each other's homes when they are in each other's cities. Lestrade thinks he gets the best out of the arrangement. A palazzo in La Serenissima beats a flat in a not-too-posh part of London hands down.

It is their first morning in Venice. They had arrived the evening before, too late and too tired for sight-seeing. Tomorrow, Lestrade plans to take Billy out to the island of Murano, where they make glass. Billy loves glass, makes jewellery from pieces of smoothed beach glass, chandeliers from recycled bottles.

Today, they will take in some of the venetian landmarks; the Basilica San Marco, the Doge's Palace, the Bridge of Sighs and the Ponte Rialto. Billy wants to go to the Guggenheim Museum, drink Bellinis in Harry's Bar, ride on a gondola with a singing gondolier. They will do all those things in the next couple of days, but first, Lestrade wants to see Billy paddling in the Acqua Alta.

He nuzzles into Billy's neck.

"Do you want me to make breakfast? Or do you want to get something when we go out?"

"Let's go out, Greg. Later. I don't want to get up yet."

He pushes Lestrade onto his back, climbs on top of him. Lestrade laughs, his belly bouncing a little. Billy bounces with it.

"Okay. What do you want?"

"This."

Billy kisses Lestrade gently, sighs quietly when Lestrade opens his mouth, kissing back. Lestrade's eyes flutter closed, then open as Billy pulls back. He closes them again. He can't bear the intensity of Billy's sea-glass gaze.

"I want you, Greg."

Billy's voice is rough

"Any way you'll let me have you."

"I'm yours, Bill. You know I am."

They are not partners, not any more. Not _boyfriends_. There has been too much pain, too much hurt on both sides for that. But they love each other. Love spending time together. Love sharing a bed; whether it is Lestrade's, new, kingsize, wood and memory foam, in his flat in St Johns Wood, or Billy's, older, smaller, wrought-iron frame and feather mattress, on the houseboat in Camden Lock.

Lestrade thinks of Billy as his love. His first, his only real love. His first in everything. Billy thinks Lestrade is the loveliest man he has ever known. Lestrade was Billy's first, too. First in everything that matters. They are lovers, in truth.

Lestrade flexes his muscles, rolls them over. Billy squeaks as the air is forced out of his lungs, laughs as Lestrade slides down over his body, grabs his foot, sucks his big toe.

"Don't know if Filippo'll have boots to fit you. Your feet are huge."

Billy huffs, a bit put out.

"They're not _that_ big."

They are not, not really. Not for someone well over six foot tall.

"If they were smaller, I wouldn't be able to balance. I'd fall over."

Lestrade kisses his way up Billy's leg, nibbles the inside of his thigh, nuzzles the curly black hair at his groin.

"Talking of huge…"

Billy giggles

"Flattery will get you everywhere…"

It is well past breakfast time, heading towards mid day, when they pull themselves out of bed. Miraculously, Lestrade's friend Filippo has boots that Billy can wear.

They splash their way across the Piazza, Lestrade holding tightly onto Billy's hand inside the pocket of the vintage greatcoat he wears in winter. The water is starting to recede, but there is still enough to make their rubber boots necessary.

Lestrade takes Billy to Florian, and they drink hot chocolate with their feet in three inches of lagoon. They queue for admission to the Basilica, and the Doge's Palace, walk across, through, the Bridge of Sighs to the Prigioni Nuove. They climb the Campanile, warily. It feels very high, and it leans a little. Later, they make their way over the Rialto bridge, and Billy tries his first spritz, standing in a tiny bar in Campo San Polo.

"Why do we have to stand up?"

"Only tourists sit down in bars. It costs more, as well."

Billy eyes the tumbler of almost-fluorescent orange drink warily.

"What's in it?"

"White wine and Aperol. With a splash of mineral water to make it fizz. Filippo makes it with prosecco, but that's cheating, really. It's Venice's signature drink."

"What's Aperol?"

"Kind of orange liqueur. Try it. But don't have too many. It's strong."

Billy decides he likes spritz. Over the years, Lestrade has introduced Billy to lots of different foods and drinks. He has liked pretty much all of them. _Except udon noodles_ , he thinks. _And snails_.

Billy finds an art shop, buys a new sketchbook, thick, creamy pages, marbled endpapers. He is entranced by glass pens, made as tourist souvenirs, but useable, and buys several, with different nib thicknesses.

The shopkeeper brings down a dusty box of tiny ink bottles. The names of the colours fascinate Billy. Indigo, Salamander, Eau de Nil, Sargasso Sea, Red Dragon, Oxblood, and _yes_ , Heliotrope. He negotiates a price for the box, arranges for it to be shipped to him in London.

Lestrade buys masks. It is Carnival, and everyone will be wearing them. For Billy, he buys a beautiful feathered half mask in sea glass colours. For himself, something plainer, metallic grey.

They make their way back towards Filippo's palazzo, Lestrade's hand in Billy's pocket again.

Filippo is cooking dinner tonight. It will be his last night off work for two weeks. Carnival is a hellish time for the police in Venice, both the Questura and the Carabinieri. Tourists don't know how to be careful around water, and often fall into the canals. Sometimes they drown.

Filippo wants to make his guests welcome, and tonight might be the only opportunity he gets. He calls out to them as they arrive

"A tavola, ragazzi!"

They shuck off their boots and join him in the kitchen. He waves Lestrade towards the fridge, tells him to open a bottle of prosecco while he finishes cooking. Lestrade pours wine for the three of them, finds cutlery and bowls. He knows what Filippo is cooking.

Filippo finishes stirring his big pot and dumps it in the centre of the kitchen table for Lestrade to serve while he quickly flash fries the final ingredient of the meal.

Billy looks at his bowl doubtfully. Filippo and Lestrade laugh. They have seen that reaction before.

"All right. What is it?"

"Risotto al nero di seppia. It is rice flavoured with squid ink. That is what gives it the black colour."

Filippo piles fried squid on a platter and sets it on the table beside the big pot.

"Eat, Bill."

Billy tries the risotto. Likes its seaside flavour. Laughs as he sees Lestrade's white, white teeth turn black from the ink.

"Is the ink actual ink?"

"Si, Bill. Before there was modern ink, artists and writers used it."

"Have you got any to spare?"

"Si. What do you want it for?"

"Can you pour a drop into a little cup or glass? I've got an idea."

Filippo pours half an inch or so of the ink into a shot glass. Billy gets out his new sketch book and glass pens, dips a pen into the ink and starts to draw. He works more slowly than usual, taking more care, getting used to the feel of the glass nibs.

He eats as he draws, fork in his left hand, enjoying the meal. By the time they have finished eating, he has finished his sketch.

Two men, Filippo and Lestrade, laughing at each other across a large pot of what is obviously black risotto. A squid lies on a plate next to the pot. Billy has had to use his phone, go online, to check what a squid looked like. Filippo's squid had been already cut into rings before Billy had seen it.

"That's brilliant, Billy. Why have you drawn yourself sad?"

Billy has drawn himself with his back to the viewer, his face only visible as a reflection in a bottle of prosecco.

"Not sad, just not laughing. You were talking shop, Greg. Police jokes. I didn't undertand them…"

"This is wonderful, Bill. Friends eating seppia, drawn in seppia. Magnifico. I would like a copy…"

Billy signs the picture, eases the page carefully out of the sketchbook.

"It's yours, Filippo."

Filippo disappears for a few minutes, coming back with an old, empty picture frame. Billy takes a photograph of the picture before it goes into the frame. He will be able to reproduce it for Lestrade.

Filippo hangs the picture, in its slightly-too-large frame, on the wall behind the kitchen table. He beams.

"That is a wonderful souvenir, Bill. Mille grazie. I am glad I have met you at last. He talks about you so much."

He gestures towards Lestrade.

"He is a good man, you know."

"I know. I've never met a better one."

"I am happy that you see it. You should come back with him per Natale. For Christmas. Venezia is beautiful at Christmas. "

"Yeah. If he asks me, I will."

**Author's Note:**

> This is a standalone story, but it fits into what I'm beginning to think of as the "Billyverse". The time frame is a little after the end of the "Sea Glass and Tattoos" series.
> 
> As always, my Lestrade is Gregor. 
> 
> I do not speak Italian.
> 
> "Venezia", a natural second chapter to this story, can be found [ here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2711891)


End file.
